Episode 3 Demolition - The Wrecking Crew

Britain is being destroyed.

Day after day, it's being torn apart.

You're looking at an hour, two hours, for an house to go,

then that's it - done and dusted.

Filmed over 12 months,

these are the men and women

taking on the biggest demolition jobs in the country.

Once you've done this job there's nothing else.

Not for a working lad, anyway.

EXPLOSIONS

Better than sex.

All right, Simon.

SIRENS BLARE

This is the inside story of the billion-pound demolition industry.

Not much of a bridge now, is it? Eh?

Better take it round to the scrap.

It's a world of dynamite...

and destruction

that's changing the face of the UK for ever.

Here we go, showtime!

Tonight...

A city's tallest tower block has to be brought down to earth,

slap-bang in the middle of a packed housing estate.

It isn't until you actually get outside

at the closest point and look down

to see how close the houses really are.

And the closest one of them at this height

looks very close!

The marathon makeover of one of Britain's busiest stations

puts commuters and deconstruction on a crash course.

Here we're almost surrounded on every face by people,

so it makes our job a million times harder.

And one demolition crew have to all down tools

when they come face-to-face with their nemesis.

You mention asbestos to me - I hate the stuff.

It's a bloody nightmare.

Three, two, one. Fire now.

EXPLOSIONS

Lovely! Bang on!

LAUGHTER

Around the UK, more than 100,000 council houses

fail to meet the Government's official housing standards.

In Hull, more than £500 million has been allocated

to improve the city's housing stock,

and it's out with the old and in with the new.

More than 1,000 outdated flats and houses are being demolished,

with entire streets wiped out.

I'm not very sentimental, I'm afraid.

I come in here, take 'em down,

and then we just want to go to the next job.

But in this huge regeneration scheme, not all buildings

can be dispatched with a digger and a set of steel toecaps.

Now the demolition crew has to contend with this...

High Court is Hull's tallest building,

and is surrounded by houses on all sides.

Bringing it down will mean landing 12,000 tonnes of concrete

in an incredibly tight space.

But before even attempting the blast,

explosive expert Martin Smith

will have to clear the entire neighbourhood.

We've had our fingers nearly snapped off on a few occasions.

Some things that we haven't yet shared with the residents

is the direction in which the building is going to fall,

and from where I'm stood here,

it's going to come towards us, slightly.

So these people here once we tell them, may be a little concerned

that the building's coming this way

and I've already had a discussion with a gentleman who said,

"So are you going to be demolishing my house, as well,

"because I live around here."

So a lot of people have this perception that we won't be able to do this

without causing damage to the properties,

but the measures that we put in, we're hoping...

we will be able to do it without damaging any buildings.

"Hoping"? HE LAUGHS

Never say never.

The last one we dropped, we dropped within about five metres

of it's original footprint.

So, basically, it almost falls down on itself

rather than spreading out around the site.

The distance between the houses is about 20 metres.

So they are...they are close.

It's certainly a lot closer for the residents.

For them, this is very close.

With houses so close by,

the explosive team has to ensure that the 19-storey tower

falls into a precise target area.

By blasting walls and columns on just six floors,

the tower will collapse under its own weight.

But controlling the direction of the fall, is the real challenge.

The explosives will be delayed vertically, so that the front,

then middle, then back will blast,

in the hope that the building will fall towards the empty site

and not towards the neighbouring houses.

Today, Martin is taking the representatives from the council

to witness a test blast.

They hope it will determine if the plan has any chance of working.

So this is one of the two test-blast areas.

And the reason why we do the test blast is to

determine how much explosive we need to demolish this section,

and to test our protection.

So, what we've got wrapped around this section of wall is...

You can't see it, but behind this geotexile material,

there's three layers of chain link fence wrapped all the way around three times.

And then the black geotextile you can see around us

represents what would be our secondary protection

that we would put up at the windows.

So if anything managed to get... to escape from this protection,

it's then got to get through that before it leaves the building.

Extra protection is vital on this job.

When the explosive rips through the walls,

concrete could go flying and smash into neighbouring houses.

These are what we call our witness boards.

So when we initiate the explosives and we come back up,

what we expect to see is them exactly as they are now.

If they've got lumps of concrete embedded in them,

it means that we've either put too much explosive in,

or not enough protection.

So the explosives themselves are a cord.

Is that 40 grams, John, or are you using two lots?

Is that 20, and you're doubling it up?

No, that's 40.

40 grams...per metre.

Yeah, you wouldn't want to be holding it whilst they set it off.

Are you nearly ready?

We've got all the calculations

to see if we can take that section of wall out.

So we're just making sure we've got the correct charge weight

to just fragment it.

We don't want to destroy it,

we just want to fragment the wall.

This is just an accelerant to make the building collapse.

It's gravity...

We just take out key structural bits

and, basically, gravity does the rest.

The tower is 60 metres tall.

When it's taken down, it will have

to land in an area that's less than 20 metres wide.

This is where John and I have our fingers crossed,

and hope that it goes fine.

Ready?

Yeah. Yep.

SHORT, LOUD CRACK

BRIEF, LOUD BANGS

And that was it.

Short but sweet.

Some of the things we're looking at immediately...

We check the witness boards -

make sure that there's no fragments embedded.

But you can see from the protection...

The protection's worked perfectly.

Starting from the bottom...

You can see all the debris is contained within the chain-link.

We cut the chain-link away...

What we'd expect to see is all the concrete come out,

and there'd be sort of a section missing in the wall.

Perfect.

So pretty much exactly what we were looking for.

With that, the load would be enough to cause the remainder to collapse.

Once the weight of the building gets sat on those, they'll just fail.

Nothing defies gravity.

Having walked up the 17 flights of stairs,

Martin can get a bird's-eye view of the task that lies ahead.

We're on the 17th floor now, but it isn't until you actually get outside

at the closest point and look down

to see how close the houses really are.

And the closest one from this height looks very close!

It's when you stand up here

and you look where the exclusion zone's going to be

and you're suddenly questioning, "Is it far enough?"

Think demolition,

and dynamite, dust and danger come to mind.

But for the guys who run the nation's wrecking crews,

there's a more glamorous side of the business,

and there's good money to be made.

Howard Stott has been in the game for 35 years,

but he hasn't always known a life of luxury.

I come off a council estate, and we didn't have anything.

You know, if anybody got a car up the street,

everybody used to come to the window

and say, "God, there's somebody's got a car!"

We used to watch it go past.

When I left school, I went on a farm driving a tractor

and that's where it all started.

I've always loved machinery and cars

and that's been my passion in life.

Bit complicated this car...

There's that many buttons,

I'm just working out where the air conditioning is.

I think it's down there.

Do you know, I've wanted a DBS for years and years.

Everybody rates on about them.

They're a lovely looking car, it is a beautiful-looking car.

I look at it as a beautiful-looking woman.

BUT it doesn't excite me,

like I thought it would.

But that's life, you know.

I suppose it's better than going on't public transport.

Fast cars might have lost some of their appeal,

but after almost four decades on-site,

Howard's passion for demolition remains undimmed.

Are you ready?!

Two-grand-an-hour going on here!

Today, his crew are flattening a Victorian mill

to make way for a supermarket

and they've reached the trickiest part -

taking down the precarious brick chimney.

All 22 metres of it.

It is a bit daunting.

It's not for the faint-hearted.

It's only so many lads will do this sort of job

without frightening themselves to death.

I've done a little bit that I'll leave it to the professionals that bit.

Howard started in the trade when he was 17,

working as a digger driver.

It was a time when chimney were brought down in the style

made famous by Fred Dibnah.

The bottom of the chimney was weakened,

propped with wood,

and then set on fire.

The exact time of the collapse couldn't be predicted.

It's going. Going!

A strategy that involved...

running for your life!

No problem.

Chimneys can still be brought down with explosives,

but this site is too tight.

So everybody's moving out the way now.

We want nobody - no vehicles, no machines -

anywhere around the chimney at the bottom, when we get going.

If the chimney is toppled in one piece,

it will hit the road or the surrounding houses.

So Howard has opted to attack the old with the new -

a cutting-edge, high-reach excavator.

Here we go, last of the mills.

Whatever the method, the immense forces in play

still mean that taking down tall, heavy structures

is an inherently dangerous task.

There's a bit of nervousness,

and there's a bit of excitement,

and you can put them two together and, you know -

it just keeps the adrenaline flowing.

When you're looking up there dealing with something like this -

you're, like, playing with a loaded gun. Something could go wrong.

And if something goes wrong with this, it's catastrophic, isn't it?

He's got to be very careful when he starts it doesn't come back on him

and roll down the arm and get him.

Until you get up there and start to peck it, you don't know how strong it is.

We thought it would've been stronger,

especially with being round, and the type of brick,

so we thought this would be a stiff one, but it's actually

a textbook job, that.

If I'd have known it were going to be so easy, I'd have had a go!

There you have it. Gone.

With a 100-year-old chimney down,

Howard's set his lads off working on another site.

His biggest job this year is taking down a much more recent build...

20 retail units in a 1970s shopping centre

have to be razed to the ground

to make way for another supermarket.

There's nothing wrong with the building.

It's not falling down and the structure's fine,

but it doesn't fit the purpose

that somebody else wants it for.

And that's what we find in lots of cases.

So we've got to shift that building

and it's more economical to start

a clean canvas and put a new building up.

Firstly, the older buildings are better cos they last a lot longer.

A lot of new buildings they throw up, have, like,

a 25-year warranty lifespan.

So after 25 years, technically, the building's still standing

but it's not in as good a condition as maybe some older buildings.

But we're not bothered, we'll knock them down every 12-month, if they want.

Keep coming.

The new supermarket will only take over half the site,

so some shops will remain trading.

Howard and his team face the technically exacting task

of splitting the shopping centre in two.

And to make matters harder still,

all of the surviving shops

intend to stay open throughout the delicate demolition surgery.

Ryan, will you just talk me through this bit now.

We've got the public walking under the scaffolding and hoarding.

-Yes.

-So, I presume, the wall obviously stays, am I right?

-That walls stays.

-That wall stays.

Our cut-line comes, basically, up the line of that roof,

to that roller-shutter and back.

That leg stays, and behind that, Sayer's bakery's live,

and behind that timber hoarding that's live mall.

So you're going to have to cut...

-We're going to have to remove this roof from the timber...

-Yeah.

..and we'll have to cut the roof above the tin roof,

and then we're going to have to cut each one of them legs in sequence.

-Just pull them away.

-Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I'd to say, this is the worst bit of the job.

-This is the trickiest bit.

-This is the trickiest bit.

In splitting the shopping centre in half,

Howard's crew has to take great care that their machines

don't catch the electricity or gas supply

that will remain live for the shops to stay open.

He's under extra pressure not to do any damage that could affect their trade.

The thing is about these jobs,

they want you to keep all the shops open, which is fine, which is fair,

but that doesn't half give us some grief.

If it was straightforward, every Tom, Dick and Harry would be doing it

and it'd be...

I think it would be a bore.

You have to have a bit of a challenge, it just gives you that

bit of excitement, and, you know,

you've got to get the heart racing a bit.

But, that will be a tricky one.

Bringing down buildings without interrupting the day-to-day life

of a busy urban area,

is a recurring challenge for demolition firms.

But in Birmingham, the £750 million makeover of New Street station

is taking that task to a whole new level.

This is the atrium demolition.

We are taking out everything from this floor and down a floor.

So what you'll have is a concourse

that vaults upwards to this big roof.

This used to be the Pallasades shopping centre,

so all of this used to be various retail units,

and over the last five years

we have moved our way through and we have taken out...

We've soft-stripped first, taken out all of the services, shop fronts,

and now we are removing the concrete.

JACK-HAMMERING

Noisy, aren't they, this lot?

Whilst demolition goes on,

it's business as usual for the station.

170,000 passengers use the station every day,

and it's the busiest interchange in the UK

with a train leaving every 37 seconds.

All right?

As demolition health and safety manager,

Debbie's role is crucial to the success of the project.

Whilst working on one of the biggest urban engineering jobs in the UK,

directly above thousands of commuters,

she has to keep man and machine apart.

I know my job has a good cause,

and I get to come to work to make sure that all of these people

that I get to work with are safe,

and isn't exposed to, like, occupational noise...

SHE LAUGHS

With what we ask of them, there's probably, like, 95% compliant.

There's always going to be the occasional person

that comes and tries to push their luck

and push me, essentially, sometimes.

You know, it's difficult being 28 and female.

There are a couple that think maybe that it's, you know...

That they don't have to listen.

But the days of turning up

with a sledgehammer and three lads and a blind eye, just won't float.

The main challenge for the demolition team

is to remove the two huge concrete floors

that sit directly above the busy station.

Just underneath their working area are 12 live railway lines.

On the other side of the atrium wall

life must continue as normal in the station.

The 1960s concrete is too weak to take the weight

of the powerful demolition machines needed.

So a new lightweight, remote-control Mega-muncher

has been built just for this job.

If the floors can be safely removed,

the demolition will reveal

a new spacious atrium,

designed to cope with the increasing passenger numbers

predicted for at least the next 40 years.

Network Rail plan to open the atrium to the public

before the end of 2015.

The demolition team has just six months to remove 6,000 tonnes of concrete.

So they're working shifts around the clock,

constantly preparing the next area for the Mega-muncher to attack.

Built in Birmingham, specifically to create the atrium,

its four-tonne jaws can apply over 3,000lb of pressure,

crushing through five-foot beams,

a wider reach than any other demolition machine.

Whilst it's the star of the show,

a support cast of dozens of demo-men work through the night

to clear the debris it leaves behind.

MAN WHISTLES TUNE

Driving the smallest machine on site, 28-year-old Skippy

has mixed views on playing second fiddle to a remote-control behemoth.

Cool the first time you see it.

Just a limelight-stealer for my little Bobcat, that's all it is.

Steals my limelight every night.

"Look at me, my big machine! Oooh...!"

My little Bobcat gets all bent out of shape about it.

I don't know... I wouldn't mind learning to drive him,

but, besides that, it just looks a bit dangerous to me.

You've seen me drive the Bobcat,

so if I got on that it'd be game-over for New Street station.

Rapido.

The thing is with demolition,

once you've knocked it down it's gone,

and they just build something new there.

Quite strange about this place because we've demolished...

We've demolished big parts of it

but it's still going to be here in years to come for people to see.

Which is very rare in our game.

It's usually, gone and a distant memory

of some old mad man in a pub.

"I remember when there was a flat block there...."

"Shut up, mate."

The train station is mercifully quiet at night,

allowing the crew to push on uninterrupted.

But if they've got any chance of having the atrium ready in time,

the Mega-muncher will have to work through the daytime, too,

without posing a danger to any of the thousands

of unsuspecting commuters.

The tallest building in Hull -

High Court Tower - is being readied for blow-down.

Following the test blast,

the engineers have decided the building needs to pre-weakened

before explosive is laid.

Key parts of the structural integrity of the six blast floors

will be removed to ensure that the blast has the maximum impact.

Martin is responsible for ensuring that the nearby houses

are all empty on the day of the blast.

By his calculations, the nearest 141 houses must all be empty

for the blow-down to go ahead.

Now he has to persuade them all to go along with his plan.

Policeman's door knock.

No, nobody coming to that.

They're not going to answer the door, are they?

The job on-site is easy,

they know exactly how long that's going to take,

they know exactly what they have to do. This is the...

The bit that is sort of really open to how the residents want to react,

whether they want to come out on the day,

or whether they just blatantly turn around at the first point

when we make contact and say, "I'm not coming out."

There were once seven tower blocks on the estate,

but Hull council decided they were too expensive to modernise

and are spending £15 million building new low-rise homes instead.

High Court is the last block standing.

Two years ago everyone was forced to move out.

That's looking across to Holmethorpe

when all the blocks were there and that's across the...

Nick and Maureen lived on the 17th floor for over 40 years.

Now they live in a bungalow two miles away -

their flat was bought by compulsory purchase order.

See, we had fantastic views.

That's why we described it as sort of like a penthouse flat

with panoramic views all the way round.

Out of the 43 years, I would say most of it are happy memories.

Oh, it was good.

Worst thing I can think about it is when it was very, very windy.

And you, like, were up there, and you knew the block moved

because, you know, it had to move.

At one point, we had a light-fitting that had three lampshades on it,

and they used to swing and you could feel it on the floor, couldn't you?

We used to sit there and - either sit on the floor or hold the floor -

and think, "Yeah, the lights will be going in a minute."

We just loved it there, it was just fun.

We imagined growing older there and probably not even ever moving.

And I must admit it was quite devastating, wasn't it?

If the council hadn't said they were demolishing

-we probably would have been still there now.

-Yeah.

-Probably would've been.

-It's just that they said we had to get out.

So we had to start looking for somewhere else.

Who should decide that you should lose your home?

The residents who still live in the shadow of High Court,

will have to evacuate their homes when the tower comes down.

Martin is planning to set up an evacuation centre

at a local school on the day.

He's going door-to-door to find out how many people would like to use it.

-Hi, sorry to disturb you.

-Hiya. It's fine.

-We're from the demolition company.

-Oh, right. Yeah.

Just chasing up the questionnaire.

Can I take your name please?

Yeah, it's Levi.

On the day of the demolition,

do you want to come to our evacuation centre

when we nicely ask you to leave?

Or do you want to make your own arrangements?

I'll make our own arrangements.

-Fantastic.

-Go to the pub.

Do you have any pets, at all?

Only four kids.

As long as my house is still standing after two o'clock, I'm fine!

-Great. Thank you.

-Thank you very much.

-Bye.

-Bye.

Do you want to come to our evacuation centre

which is going to be the school over the road?

Fantastic.

Oh...! You can't stay, it's coming this way.

Martin needs to know that everyone in the evacuation zone

will follow his orders,

or the entire demolition could be scuppered.

Well, that went well.

Howard's demolition team are making steady progress

taking down the 1970s shopping centre near Blackpool,

but they've yet to attempt the most difficult part of the project -

the crucial halfway cut.

Howard has worked in demolition for his whole adult life.

It's more than a profession, it's a love affair.

If you're a genuine demo man,

the real hardcore demo man,

like I have been all my life,

it just really gets into your blood.

And you just can't help it.

Like there was certain things when I got married.

My wife would book an holiday,

and I'd cancel. I wouldn't go.

It'd come to the end, and she'd have to go with the kids on her own,

because I'd say, "Oh, I've got this demolition job on, blah, blah."

And she used to go absolutely mad.

And she once said to me, one day, I'll never forget this

she said, "You know, I think you love your demolition company

"more than you love me."

And I responded by saying,

"Look, I love my mate's demolition company, more than I love you."

She went absolutely ballistic

and I always said, you know -

And I didn't realise what it was doing. It was wrecking it.

She left.

She went.

She'd just had enough and,

and she couldn't take no more.

And it's... I don't realise it - because it has, because...

"It's took hold of you, Howard" and "Get a life."

Get, you know... But this IS my life.

It's what I've done from being a kid, right the way up,

and I don't know nothing else.

Howard's biggest challenge this year

is splitting a shopping centre cleanly in two

to make way for a new supermarket.

His team has to completely flatten half of it,

but leave the other half intact.

As if that wasn't challenge enough,

he's now got a new headache.

It turns out the shopping centre is full of the demolition man's

worst nightmare - asbestos.

We've had a problem with the asbestos -

there's more of it than what we thought,

and it takes time to get it out.

So, it's all getting knocked back

because, you know, there's procedures...

How you've got to do it, and you just can't go at it willy-nilly.

They've discovered the beams are coated with asbestos.

Howard's employees are among the select band of demo workers,

who've the licence and qualification needed to take it down.

But first, the area has to be sealed off and made totally airtight

so no-one is exposed to the deadly fibres.

Right, so the lads are getting in there to strip the asbestos.

We've got to go in there and do what's called a smoke test.

We go in with a smoke machine.

Fire away, Gary.

We fill the enclosure with smoke.

If that smoke leaks through,

then obviously we've got a problem, and we have to seal that,

and then re smoke-test it, again.

Once there's no leaks, we can then sign the enclosure off as live,

and commence with the asbestos works then.

When you talk about endangering somebody's life, silently,

you just don't buck the system.

Make your way through now, Gary.

The asbestos itself, the product,

for what it does, is fantastic.

I don't know of anything else that does what it can do.

The shame is that it's so deadly.

The way it can insulate products is fantastic.

It's used in electrics to insulate against sparks.

It's brilliant for fire retardants.

You know, it were a brilliant product,

it's just the fact of the danger that comes with it.

Who's to say that in 20 years' time there's another product we're using now

that might not bring the same problems.

You can't really see much at all now, it's well and truly smoked out.

Asbestos was still used in construction in the UK,

as recently as 1999.

It's now known that even just a few microscopic fibres

can cause asbestosis, a crippling and untreatable lung disease.

Years and years ago, when I started in the business,

you'd go on and you'd knock an asbestos roof in

and you might come across an asbestos-lagged pipe, you know,

you'd probably end up shovelling it up.

Nobody... We...We...wasn't trained

and we didn't know about the dangers.

You know, we didn't know any better. You know.

Until all the people started dying.

You can't afford any slip-ups because if we DO miss a bit -

which, touch wood, up till now we haven't done -

you've got our knocking-down gang that come along,

and then they might be exposed to it.

And then, if they miss it, you've got the poor building gang

that's going to put the new building up, they'll be exposed to it.

And it just does on and on and on and on.

Dealing with asbestos is dangerous,

and company owners can be jailed if they breach the rules.

Work here will have to be halted

until it's been painstakingly removed -

a process that could hold up the job for weeks.

To put it in a nutshell, you mention asbestos to me,

it makes me cringe.

I hate the stuff. It's a bloody nightmare.

At Birmingham New Street,

the ambitious demolition that will

create a vast 30-metre high atrium is continuing apace.

Yo, sexy boy!

Work is going on whilst the main station in Britain's second city

remains operating at full capacity.

The first of the two huge concrete floors has been removed ahead of schedule,

but now they're moving onto the floor that's closest

to the myriad of railway lines directly below.

Health and safety manager Debbie

is responsible for her team on site,

and also for ensuring that no passengers are hurt or hindered

by the demolition.

I don't think anyone appreciates the extent of what's going on

on the other side of the walls.

I think the tunnels that have been put in place

to get people from A to B give you an affect of a full station,

when actually on either side of each tunnel is just work.

Men working, taking out and putting back in.

So I think they've done a good job of keeping everything running really

while...while we knock everything apart.

So I come down here and go through and do background noise monitoring.

So we look at everything from the Tannoys,

to the people pulling trolleys to the people with talking, crowds...

And then we look at when we start works

with our Brokks and our breakers.

We look at how much we're affecting or increasing the noise.

See if there's any more controls that we need to put in

so we're not bothering the public any more than we need to.

So what this does, is it takes the noise readings from the area.

So it's picking up the DBA for all the different noises around us.

So, everybody that goes past that's talking,

anyone that's pulling a suitcase,

all of our works above and behind the walls, on the other side...

So everything, really.

And we're looking to stay under certain levels.

Point it. Look at it. Not bad. Leave.

It's a lot more technical than that.

-Is it?

-No.

With so many passengers walking around,

passed, and under the work site every day,

the demolition team can't afford to make any mistakes.

In any other circumstance with demolition,

you get everybody out of the way,

you get all of your men as far away as possible,

and you demolish in a controlled environment

with very few people in the way.

But here we're almost surrounded on every face by people,

so it makes our job a million times harder.

In Hull, preparations for the demolition of the 19-storey tower,

High Court, are underway.

JACK-HAMMERING

The walls have been weakened on the structural engineer's advice.

Now, over the coming weeks 1,000 holes must be drilled

before the building is peppered with explosive.

As there's no record of the strength of the concrete,

or amount of reinforcing steel used in the building,

blasting isn't an exact science.

Large volumes of concrete could fall further than predicted,

so Martin has to ensure that the nearest 141 houses are empty

on the day of the blast.

This is certainly not the glamorous side of the job!

Let's hope this isn't here on the day.

The evacuation is crucial for public safety,

as more than 1,000 explosive changes will be primed

by the time blow-down day arrives.

The exact timing of an explosive demolition

is not normally made public,

but as Martin needs so many locals to cooperate,

he's let them know they plan to detonate at midday,

so they can make arrangements.

But with blow-down day just four weeks away,

there's trouble brewing.

Up until this morning, there were still 28 properties,

that we still hadn't had any contact from.

And we have had on this project two people that have said,

"I'm not coming out."

One lives very close to the block

and the other one lives close enough that we wouldn't be happy

about not getting them out on the day.

But we've already had that discussion with the...

with our client, and with Housing and with the police.

So we've made them, everybody's aware of the issues we may have.

Last resort, physically knocking the door in, and extracting them.

But it's a really last resort and I've never had it yet on a project,

so, hopefully, not on this one.

And you kind of think - "Why?"

Given that what's going to happen on the day.

Why they wouldn't want to leave,

but people are strange, I suppose.

On the day of the blast,

Martin could have to call in support from the police.

If anyone in the exclusion zone refuses to leave their home,

his efforts to get the local community on side

could all be in vain.

Howard's crew are reaching the most difficult part

of their shopping centre demolition.

The asbestos has been safely removed, so tonight

they separate the buildings that they're demolishing

from the shops that are supposed to remain standing.

How's it going?

Should I be concerned yet or not?

-No.

-No, not yet?

As long as you know a good place, you'll be all right.

I just make unannounced visits,

but when it's something like this I just like to... Peace of mind.

I'm quite confident that they have it in hand and it'll go perfect.

But it doesn't always go to plan,

but we're hoping this is going to go to plan so, you know,

you'll have to bear with me on this one.

The thing that we've got to really, really be careful of is,

we've got four girders coming from this part of the building,

which is coming down, going through to the building,

which is staying up.

Now, the slightest rattle of movement on one of them buildings

will shake their building.

You cannot afford to have the slightest movement

because it will just drop the girder right through

and we know this isn't going to happen.

HE MOUTHS SILENTLY

I mean, what's the worst that can happen?

They flatten the cafe?

There's another one round the corner up there that's a good one,

but that's the worst that can happen.

If you ever lose your key for the front door,

that's what you want, one of them.

The shops that are staying put have closed for the day,

but Howard has just one night to split the building

so they can open as normal first thing tomorrow.

Taking down the girders will reduce the structural support

in both sides of the building,

and four girders have to come down tonight without causing any damage.

Should we move away from them?

That's just come how we wanted it to come.

I was always concerned it was going to flick that way,

batter against them windows and everything, so it hasn't.

It's gone where we wanted it.

Three down, one to go.

Now Howard's crew has to make the most final,

most difficult cut by hand, and the excavator is in position

to try to prevent the girders swinging down uncontrollably.

With the final steel successfully severed,

the shops on the cut line are still standing and intact.

The rubble from the demolished half of the shopping centre will soon

be cleared and the building work on the new supermarket can begin.

Open as usual in the morning, look. See, they must have known.

You see, while everybody's in bed,

we're here keeping the wheels of industry turning

to keep everybody going,

and they won't even know we've been when they come in the morning.

Well, I like to think that's a result.

Another good job done.

-Sentry one, receiving? Over.

-RADIO:

-Loud and clear.

-Sentry two, receiving? Over.

-RADIO: Loud and clear.

Sentry three, receiving? Over.

-RADIO:

-Loud and clear.

Blow down day in Hull...

or it will be if Martin's team can coax all the residents

of High Court's neighbouring properties into leaving their homes

at the allotted hour.

I always feel really apprehensive of the morning of blow down.

It's one of those where you're praying for everything to go right

and 99.99% of the time it goes right,

but there is always something that just throws a little bit

of a spanner in the works that's unexpected.

Martin's assembled a team to go door-to-door,

to make sure everyone in the 141 houses in the exclusion zone

are out in time.

We're telling the evacuation team,

we're trying to get everybody out by 10:00.

That may not happen.

The team includes some keen volunteers...

his mum and his wife.

I will give it to you first, Abi.

Hello, Martin's wife, Martin's wife.

Most of the neighbours have agreed to leave whilst the tower comes down

but Martin's team have identified one household on the estate

that is still not willing to play ball.

So, if you get any abuse or anything, again just let me know

and we can sort of try and deal with it through the authority

or the police, just to politely go and knock on the door

and convince them it's probably the best thing to do,

is to leave for the day.

Other than that, happy knocking.

Martin has asked for everyone in the exclusion zone

to be out of their properties by 10:00 AM, to try and ensure

they hit the scheduled time for the blast, midday.

-Hiya.

-Hi, good morning, from the evacuation team.

Just a little prompt reminder, that's all.

10:00, if you could be out, that'd be great.

-Yeah, yeah, that's fine.

-All right, thank you.

Have you had somebody knock on the door? Cos we're part of the

-evacuation team.

-I've put a green sticker on.

-You're an angel.

DOG BARKS LOUDLY

Lovely dog, aw.

-KNOCK AT DOOR

-Just a polite reminder,

-there's a 10:00 evacuation, that's all.

-Just getting ready.

Oh, all right, OK.

Thank you, all right. Bye.

There's no-one else in there.

-Oh, that's all right. You're not harbouring anybody?

-No!

THEIR LAUGHTER DROWNS SPEECH

Team one, we're quite confident that everybody's vacated, over.

OK, thank you.

Well, we've got one property that they've been adamant from the start

through this whole process that they're not coming out.

They work nights and why should they leave?

So it does give me a little bit of concern

because it's obviously one property out of 141 that won't come out

but hopefully they will come out.

We'll see what happens, they may want to be that awkward,

I don't know.

With houses less than 20 meters away from High Court,

the explosives engineer's calculations have to be bang on.

There is only one way that it can fall

without causing catastrophic damage.

The cabin just at the...

The police are on hand to help with the evacuation.

If the residents who say they won't leave put themselves in danger,

they could be arrested for a breach of public order.

-Have they said whether...

-Mr Smitt.

-Yes.

He doesn't have an issue with evacuating, it's the length of time

he has to be evacuated for.

So basically he said if you tell him a time that he has to be out for,

he will be out.

We're very late as it is, so no arguing, it's a

"you must be walking out of this house at this time,"

and there's no leeway for "I'll be another ten minutes..."

Yeah, and what time's that?

It's probably 11:30.

Right, the latest time is 11:00.

Now we're here on the day with the boys in blue,

it's now, "I actually don't have any problem with leaving,

"it's just the length of time I want to be out the house,

"so what's the latest I have to be out for and when can I be back in?"

So the drama's over, he's happy to go, so that's pretty much 100%.

So that's everybody out who we said we were going to get out.

RADIO: That's fine, just make sure that gentleman

doesn't access back into his house, please.

With the evacuation complete, the explosives team can begin

their final preparations to take down the tower.

As well as those who've been evacuated from their houses,

residents who used to live in High Court have come to watch.

I lived in there 20 years ago and I loved it,

it was really good.

It was brilliant flats,

and my sister's baby was born in there as well, in the bathroom.

Once it's gone it'll be great, because it's been an eye sore

for the last few years but it's like an end of an era.

It's a part of history,

so I hope it all goes down well and everybody's safe.

Hello, it's the demolition team.

Could you come and answer the door, please?

With just over an hour to go until blow down, there's a problem.

Hello?

Martin's team have spotted a window open in a house

they think was shut earlier.

Want to go around?

It could be a sign that someone is still in.

And the house is worryingly close to the explosive-laden tower.

Stop anybody coming back into the zone, please. Over.

RADIO: Need to keep an eye on it because we think there maybe

somebody inside, so if you see any movement of anybody, we need to know.

We just keep knocking and we'll get...

We've done that, we've been round the back,

but we're pretty certain there's somebody in there.

RADIO: Can you go back to your position

so I can see you from where I am?

The window's open, it definitely wasn't before.

RADIO: Position two receiving loud and clear.

If Martin can't be sure that the house is empty, the demolition

will have to be delayed and with it, hundreds of residents will be

further prevented from getting back into their own homes.

Receiving, over. We can't 100% confirm that he's gone.

The indicator for us was that the window at the front is still open

which he may have left but he might not have done as well.

Where he is, he is a little bit too close for comfort.

So, we may need to be as vigorous as we can and make sure we get him out.

This is the police.

If you don't come and answer the door, we'll be forced to put it in.

We have a cherry picker which we may be able to get up

and open the window and shout through the window.

-I don't see him.

-Nobody there?

Just push the window to, then.

So there's no bed or anything in there, there isn't anybody or a bed.

It's just an empty room.

That hasn't changed the position, though, has it?

Hasn't confirmed or denied whether there's anyone in there, has he?

Yeah, yeah.

Well, yeah.

Common sense would dictate that he's either in another room or downstairs,

-if he is in there.

-Yeah...

-He's in a critical position.

He is if he's in.

It's pretty close.

In a career of almost 20 years,

Martin has overseen more than 50 explosive demolitions.

He's never had to break in to secure a house before,

but with the police on standby, it's the only option,

as the house is in a dangerously vulnerable position.

FORCEFUL BANGING

Thank you.

Police!

-Nobody in? Nobody in?

-Nope, empty house.

Property's empty.

Unfortunately we've had to knock his back door in, so to speak,

but we're just going to board it up now

and then we'll get a permanent sort of a repair in place.

This is the first time that it's ever happened to me

that we've actually had to knock somebody's door in,

so it's not the most pleasant thing, but in the interests of safety,

given how far away the building is, it's something that we had to do.

SIREN BLARES

With the team confident that the exclusion zone is completely clear,

the demolition can go ahead.

Now it just a case of collapsing a 60 meter building into a tiny space,

with houses less than 20 metres away.

Ten, nine, eight,

seven, six, five...

Fire now.

Before the residents are allowed back in their houses,

Martin has to check that they're all still standing.

I quite like that smell after.

Pretty much the houses at this side are still all safe,

little bit of clean up required.

But the fence is still in place and the houses aren't damaged.

Once we've got the footpath clear,

we can now allow the residents to start coming back in.

The closest houses have escaped any damage,

but there are homes on all sides of this site.

And there's a vivid reminder of just how important the evacuation was.

A lump of the tower has been propelled further than planned,

shattered one resident's fence.

There you can see obviously it's spilled out a little bit

just into the first property here.

There's a few lumps that we're just going to bring a machine round now

and clear this out of the way.

We can see there's a minor bit of superficial damage to the door,

but certainly nothing that's going to stop them

from getting back in that property.

Now the thousands of tonnes of steel and concrete that once stood

60 metres high would soon be put to another use.

This was the tallest building in Hull up until 30 minutes ago,

and as you can see now it's less than probably a quarter

of its height with what we've got left.

And now we've got to spend the next six weeks processing all that

concrete and getting all the steel out of it and recycling it and

sending it off for somebody else to use on another construction project.

In Birmingham,

the two concrete floors have been removed over the past five months.

It will take a few months for contractors to deck out

and decorate the space, then for the first time in 45 years,

New Street Station will be bathed in natural light and able to cope

with the predicted increase in footfall for the next 40 years.

It's a dream just five or six months away from becoming a reality.

Demolition has finished, but before Debbie and the crew

pack up and leave site, the press have been invited

to see the fruits of their labour.

It'll look beautiful.

It really will and here we will have the benefit of the atrium roof,

so you'll have so much more light in the station,

which I think is what it missed before.

Guys, do you want to gather round a minute?

This is it done, and you can see from here

all the way up to the roof.

It's the end of an era after five and a half years.

We did what we came to do and we did it well,

and we did it quicker than expected and we did it safely

and we did it without incident or injury.

And it was exactly what we wanted from it.

It's... We couldn't have asked for a better job.

When you first walk in, it is a bit of a kind of,

"Oh, goodness me, it's a hell of a sight, isn't it?"

It is, it's great, and we've worked for five years

in tiny little dark spaces so it's quite nice to see the sky again.

They'll only have a little snippet of, like, about 30 seconds,

-a minute or something like that.

-They build it up all day

and it comes on, they're like, "Here at New Street station,"

and someone goes, "We've finished!"

And then that's it, that's all that's on the news.

One, two, three, cheese!

I love demolition.

It's a sense of accomplishment when you come and see something

that's an eye sore or damaged or, you know, a hazard to people

and we can come and take it away

and they build something beautiful in its place.

So we're not part of the construction so much,

but we facilitate construction, we facilitate change.

So demolition is what I know, what I'm good at and what I enjoy.

So it's what I will always do.

Yeah...

unless I can get a bakery!